Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
Finding ancient routes throughout the five boroughs has been challenging and rewarding for me. Some, like Broadway in Manhattan and the Bronx, or Kings Highway in Brooklyn, are just as busy, if not busier, than they were centuries ago when they were first initiated. Some are Native American trails that were based on wild animal traces. [...]
Categorized in: Roads Tagged with: Howard Beach Ozone Park Queens
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: Ozone Park
Because of its proximity to John F. Kennedy International Airport, I had always thought Ozone Park’s name had something to do with air travel, since the ozone layer is high in earth’s atmosphere. I couldn’t have been more wrong. When developers Benjamin Hitchcock and Charles Denton built lots of small houses immediately south of Woodhaven in [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Ozone Park Queens
TO FIND RARE BEASTS, you have to know what environment they thrive in. The same principle applies to locating species of ancient NYC streetlighting…they like to hang out in the darkest corners of the city, where the Department of Transportation can’t find them. Lamp designs that are long extinct in bright sunlight are often found [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Brighton Beach Bronx Brooklyn Bushwick Forest Hills Greenwich Village High Line Manhattan Ozone Park Queens Riverdale
The little olive-colored stoplight, with its serrated exterior and the fluted base, once was to NYC streets what the passenger pigeon was to the skies. They weren’t on every corner…traffic wasn’t so heavy as to mandate their universal presence…but as often as not, two of these, cater-cornered, was enough to control traffic and allow people [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Bayside FDR Drive Grand Central Terminal Harlem Manhattan Ozone Park Queens Stoplights
You’ll find a lot of books on the shelves, especially during the holiday season, that have dozens of old-time postcards of New York’s most famous landmarks…the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, and all the rest. Between about 1900 and 1950, hundreds of thousands of postcards depicting painted versions, as well as [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Subways & Trains Tagged with: Bath Beach Bay Ridge Borough Park Brooklyn Downtown Brooklyn East New York Inwood Manhattan Ozone Park Queens South Beach Staten Island
The Rockaway Line is a mighty good road, the Rockaway Line is the road to ride, to paraphrase the old song. Or rather, it used to be the road to ride, since no passenger trains have run on it since 1962. The Long Island Railroad’s Rockaway Beach Branch diverged from the LIRR’s Main Line in Rego [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Forest Hills Ozone Park Queens Rego Park Woodhaven
Throughout the five boroughs, there are scattered some streetlamps that look as if they didn’t eat their spinach during their formative years. Their growth seems stunted. Actually, the city has valid reasons to install such short poles. The above pictures were taken in the vicinity of 23rd Avenue and 82nd Street near LaGuardia Airport. Lampposts [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Jackson Heights Jamaica Ozone Park Queens Ridgewood
NYC stoplight design has pretty much been stuck in neutral since the 1960s, when cylindrical posts holding three-light stoplights as well as WALK/DONT WALK signs first appeared on street corners, joining the more massive guy-wired lamps at major corners that first appeared in the 1950s. This page will take a look at the stoplight posts [...]
Categorized in: Signs Street Lamps Tagged with: Auburndale Central Park Far Rockaway Forest Hills Grand Central Terminal Manhattan Ozone Park Queens St. Albans
